Tyler Wright

Co-founder of unannounced game studio | xRiot | xWizards | GenAI innovation for brand new player experiences from creator-first principles ✍️❤️

[Eden Chen @edenchen]

Games marketing is broken. After raising over $50M to support and work with hundreds of studios over the last 6 years, I find that the biggest problem is studios’ lack of direct connection with their players.

Over the last six years, I’ve watched talented teams struggle because they never had a clear way to reach, learn from, and grow with players over time. Without that connection, everything becomes harder - validation, iteration, community growth, and retention all turn into guesswork.

For most of the games industry’s history, platforms have controlled identity, communication, and distribution, which are invaluable to a game’s success.

Apple limited how studios could collect and use player contact information outside the App Store, and Steam still doesn’t give studios access to the contact details of players who wishlist or sign up for playtests.

Studios are left without a direct relationship with the audience they’re trying to serve.

As a result, studios rely on fragmented tools and spreadsheets to manage players across different stages of development and live operations, with no continuity from first contact through long-term engagement.

Today, that changes with the launch of FirstLook 1.0.

FirstLook is the first Player Relationship Platform built specifically for games. It gives studios everything they need to connect with players across the full lifecycle, including playtests and feedback, community and communications, analytics, rewards, and creator programs, all in one place.

We’ve been building under the radar, but FirstLook already powers hundreds of studios, from indies to publishers like Krafton, @ArenaNet, and @Skybound, connecting millions of players with the developers who make the games they love.

As part of the launch, we’re introducing a brand new limited time free plan, with access to all our features for up to 500 players. You can set this up now in under 10 minutes. If you want to learn more, book a demo and we guarantee that you will save you time and money and help you grow. Links in comments!

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

@hellovai TBF, I made it intentionally look/work just like BAML, so I'm also biased. I just don't think the limitation is from f-strings so much as it is *only* f-strings.

Also TBF, Template Literals gives me a processing function I use liberally that f-string doesn't have.

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

@hellovai You mean instead of Jinja? Because it's nice to work within python directly, instead of a templating language.

I'm using a BAML-inspired workflow with JS Template Literals that allows me to do all the things Jinja does using the abstraction I like: Typescript.

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

Well, that's a wrap! See y'all LinkedIn side (maybe minus the YA romance)

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

Huh, 4 years since my last post (are they still tweets or is that old-school now?)

I have a lot of things I should start talking about: startup life, D&D, game design, business learnings (aka failures), YA romance books my daughter makes me read...

Is Twitter/X still the place?

[Aaron Barich @RuneclawBarich]

Dreamlit Paths was made by many people who made some great stuff, but for my final post about it, I want to focus on the devs that were laid off by Riot who I know contributed to some part of the set. So much talent here and it was a joy to work with all of them.

[Renee Gittins | Potions: A Curious Tale @RikuKat]

It's been a 10 year journey, but I'm finally at the end. I hope my story can inspire others to keep pressing forward in pursuit of their dreams.

https://t.co/0sfOGvuevW

#gamedev #indiegame #indiedev #WomenInTech

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

@cheng_CvC I absolutely love this btw, so beautiful!

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

@cheng_CvC Is this a real game?

[Dan @DanielJMoran]

There's definitely some truth to this, though I would also consider relabeling the y-axis "code complexity".

A junior writes simple code because that's all they know— a senior writes simple code because they know better.

It's that tricky mid-level that tends to over engineer.

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

@DanielJMoran To my 13 year old self, graphics had finally peaked

[Apocalyptic Games @apocgames]

Years of work and care have gone into this game

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

@fritzy Missing you

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

@Postmita @iamdnorth @riotgames Honing skills and building experience is a great strategy, just don’t be afraid to go for it, and go for it again if it doesn’t work out the first time

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

An amazing peek into the tough choice of killing your game with only a hope for something better

I was there, but this is my first time hearing the full story
#gamedev #RiotGames #LegendsOfRuneterra

[Legends of Runeterra @PlayRuneterra]

A League card game that almost was, as told by the devs who were there. This is the story of Bacon.

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

@iBrent Been too long Brent, too long 😊

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

There’s something really appealing about the idea of creating a “Truth Parrot” account that tweets back at people their own post, but the way everyone else hears it #selfaware #toxic #troll

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

Congratulations! And thank you, for contributing to games in such an open manner <3

[inkle is EXPELLED! @inkleStudios]

After five years of hard thought, iteration and community development, we're proud to announce that ink has now reached version 1.0!

Read all about the new release, and a quick "story so far" on our blog 👉 https://t.co/lpsE2ENKaX

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

@RealFakeGibs really great chatting about VFX tonight!

[Tyler Wright @xtyler]

Experimenting with saber light in this game of runes, in honor of a supreme #StarWars weekend! #indiedev #gamedev